Okay, so I recently switched gyms. I'll spare you the boring details about why and just let you know that I am slowly being accepted in my new workout hole. Anyway, when I finish weight training, I typically walk on the treadmill for about sixty pages worth of paperback escapism. Every chapter, I move the speed up a tenth of a number, i.e. I start at four and then move from four to four point one and on so on and so forth as I progress through the book. I have no problem reading while walking or while as a passenger in a car or even in a rocky boat at high seas. It's just one of those things I can do that make up some of the more meaningless attributes of who I am.
Hold on, the story's coming.
So two weeks ago in the gym, I finish walking and get off the treadmill when a woman stops me–she was one of those older hot chicks whose body is great but whose eyes give away a certain jaded mistrust of all things male.
Said woman, without even introducing herself, says to me, "There's no way you can read that fast while power-walking."
"Sure there is," I say. "Otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it."
At this point in the conversation she cocks her head and offers me a sideways smirk while saying, "I think you're just trying to impress people."
I laugh very loudly and say, "Sure lady, that's my scam. I want everyone in the gym to think I'm awesome because I know how to read and walk at the same time. Stick around for the encore when I chew gum while reading Tolstoy."
I then walk away from said lady. Needless to say, I am at this point a little worried about someone who would let my experience of my post weightlifting fat-burn exercise upset her. Some people need lives.
After I finish showering and getting dressed, I'm standing in line to buy a protein-infused smoothie and the dude in front of me is telling the smoothie girl (a genuine hottie named Danielle) a story. The part I overhear goes, "And then he says stick around for the encore when I do it all while chewing gum." (I have to say his version sounded less clunky and more succinct than my closing line but I was a little taken aback while reacting to a person and he was just telling a story.)
Danielle sees me behind the dude and her eyes get all big as she says, "That was funny, Nate."
Dude in line pats me on the back as I buy my smoothie.
"You a funny motherfucker," he says. "That was really cool."
And the award for most pointless anecdote on PIC goes to…. Motherfucking me!
And I couldn't be more proud.